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Sahitya mentioned the link between evolution and randomness, which I have been thinking about as I read The Blind Watchmaker (note to a Serendip admin- the publication date for The Blind Watchmaker on this page is incorrect; should be 1986, not 1996). The perception of evolution and, more specifically, natural selection as a 'random' process has caused a great deal of misunderstanding and incredulity, especially among those who seek any opportunity to exploit 'flaws' in Darwinian theory. These would-be detractors misunderstand natural selection as a 'random' process, and therefore incredulously suggest that natural selection would suppose highly ordered, complex mechanisms such as the human eye to be merely products of random mutation and genetic shuffling. Their incredulity is perfectly founded, but their understanding of the theory of natural selection has a fatal flaw: while Darwin and followers suggest that mutation and other genetic novelties are random, while the process of natural selection itself is anything but random. Random mutations etc. are thrown into the 'sieve' of natural selection, and those that are adaptive (or at least not detrimental) pass through. Thus, natural selection sorts a random input into two classes, and it is this order which causes evolution to produce adaptations. But what of the filter of natural selection? Is it random? Is it an unavoidable consequence of natural or physical laws? Is it different from, say, gravity, which tends to filter materials in a gradient based on density? It would seem to me that it is no different from gravity: although it cannot be quantified in the same way, it can take a random input class and sort it into an ordered output. The point I suppose I'm making is that 'filters' seem to bridge the gap between randomness and order, or that may at least be an interesting line of reasoning to pursue.